Starbase 842
by cisco teen
Summary: The pragmatic tale of Starfleets Starbase 842...the ups, the downs, and the truth that lies in between. Recently Redone! Brand new characters! Please R&R, i think this story has good potential. Story by Ostentatious Photon and Jenn
1. Default Chapter

_Door chimes_

Commander Coleman rolled his head off of his arm, and sat up straight in his chair. His dark brown hair was disheveled from the nap he had been enjoying just moments ago on his ready room desk.

_Door chimes again_

"Enter"

The door slides open in its typical fashion, and Lieutenant Duran, the security chief, enters. Skipping protocol, the charming brunette slid into a chair in front of the desk.

"Can I help you?" queries Coleman.

"Probably not, but that's not why I'm here," answers Duran. "I wanted to let you know that the security complex on level 40 is complete. We missed you at the opening."

Dropping his head into his hands, Coleman grunted. "Oh man…I totally forgot. Damn, I'm sorry, I should…"

"Spare me, Aiden. We all know that you've had your hands full lately. Besides, it was a low-key event."

"Alece, I screwed up, and there's no need to cover it with making it seem not that important. I know how excited you were about this project"

The security complex on level 40 was a state-of-the-art, 30 cell security hub of Starbase 842. It was the first of its kind in Starfleet. Tactical sensors could be routed there, and it even had its own computer and power systems, along with a small medbay. If needed, the entire Starbase could be run from that level.

"Hmm…your right, you screwed up. I guess you'll have to buy me dinner tonight, now won't you," added Alece with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah…ill meet you at the galleria at, say, 1930 hours?"

"You got it… and if you don't show, I might have to pull out that story about that academy prank…"

Coleman's eyes grew wide in horror. "Don't you dare!"

"Oh, I dare!" sputtered Duran, through her laughing.

"Yeah, you'll be spending some time in one of those brand new cells of yours" added the commander, smiling.

"Ah, ill see you at 1930," sighed Duran, exiting the office.

Aiden Coleman leaned back in his chair, reflecting on his academy days. That's where he first met Duran, and they had grown to become good friends. Now, he thought, he really lucked out that he was able to choose her to serve on SB 842.

With a Grunt, Coleman stood from his chair, stretched, and walked over to get a glass of water.

Back on the bridge, Duran walked across and resumed her station. Carson rolled his eyes looking over at Alece.

"Those shoes are so last year" he laughed as he walked into Coleman's office.

"Sir, we have a major large problem. Again," he spoke in a high pitched, nearly whiney voice, in his hands a pair of old looking shoes. "These shoes…are…were…brand new!"

Looking exasperated, he threw the shoes on the commander's desk. "We have to do something about those little monsters! _They_ pulled ANOTHER prank on me," finishes Carson, crossing his arms and looking like an upset child.

Coleman then dumped out the water and filled the glass with vodka. "Well, Mr. Lucas. Have a seat."

Counselor Carson sat down at near attention, except for the fact that he had one leg crossed on top of the other.

"Oooh drinks…," Uttered the counselor, sitting up even straighter. "May I, _please…"_

"Sure, help yourself" said Coleman. The moment he gave to OK, however, he instantly regretted it, and vivid memories of Carson drunk at the commissioning ceremony filled his memory.

"OOOOH!" cried Carson, eagerly hurrying over to the mini-bar and pouring himself a glass. "Oh _my_, Commander! This is the good stuff…looks like ill have to tell where the real drinks are!"

Coleman took this time to rest him elbows on the desk, and place his forehead into his palms. Carson took his seat again, and began describing what happened.

"Well, the little brats put foam in my desk, and, and it got EVERYWHERE, but the worst thing is, it RUINED MY 200 CREDIT SHOES!" The counselor made a point to put emphasis on the shoes, because in reality, he could have cared less about the office to begin with. He was planning on re-doing it anyways; this just gave him an excuse. "I demand a FULL REFUND from their mother!"

Coleman attempted to stifle his laughter by pretending to cough, but he wasn't sure it was completely concealed. "So this foam ahem completely filled your office?

"Yes, my whole office was filled," whined Carson, after he took another large gulp. "It took _forever _to get it out of my hair!"

Seeing the quantity of alcohol already consumed by the man in front of him, Coleman decided to expedite the discussion. "Here, ill talk to Naiobi about it...and don't worry about your shoes, we'll take care of them. Hey, you know, I think they just got a new shipment in at Pier 76 imports down at the galleria! Some new stuff from Tarklius IV," he said, looking enthusiastic.

The counselors eyes widened, and he stood up. "Well don't you know how to get a guy all excited! Just what I needed, a whole new office setting! OH, IT WILL BE ZEBRA!" he practically screamed. He grabbed Coleman by the desk and started pointing all around the room. "A new black and white couch over there," points to a corner, "and a beautiful ottoman here," he bounced on the desk slightly, "and maybe, a few paintings on the walls there, there AND there!" he pointed to certain areas on the wall before standing up, "Oooh, I just have to go look!"

Coleman slapped on his customer service smile, and showed the counselor out the door. "Have fun!" he stammered through the gritted teeth of his smile. (By now the counselor was nearly skipping to the turbolift.) As soon as Carson left, he took the shoes (that were hideous anyway) and threw them into the waste reclimator. Those twins from hell were really causing a lot of problems

Coleman takes a moment after sitting down to mentally prepare himself for his Chief Science Officer, Naiobi Orinocho. Aiden activates the comm.:

Naiobi looked up from the experiment she was working on, cursing under her breath. He _always _called for her when she was doing something she deemed more important then a chat with him. Tapping her own comm, she manages a, "right away sir."

The angry woman turned to her aid and spoke in an unnecessary tone, "alright, when I get back, I want these test results on my desk, understood?"

The ensign shook her head as, Orinocho walked out towards the lift

Coleman took a moment to look at the security logs to make sure, in fact, that the twins had done this to the counselor's office. Sure enough, the little imps were at it again

After only a few moments later, Naiobi chimed at the door standing with her hand on her hip and her head cocked to the side

Remorsefully, Coleman looked up from the monitor. "Enter"

The science officer walked in, her body not changing except for the fact that it was once outside of the door. She stood there looking at him, with an impatient scowl.

Coleman sighed. "Have a seat, if you'd like"

Naiobi sat down in the chair, and unlike Carson she did not cross her legs in any manor. Instead, she rested her elbow on the chair, rolled her eyes, and complained, "I was in the middle of something. This had better be very important"

Coleman was starting to get angry. "First of all, _Lieutenant_, do not roll your eyes at me. Second of all, this is important. It has to do with your two… (Several illicit terms crossed his mind)…children.

Naiobi sat back, closing her eyes as to not let him see her roll them once more. She took his first statement in with a mumbled 'yes sir' then sat up, opening her eyes again. "My _angel_ children?"

Coleman coughed. "Computer, play security recording of this morning, Counselors office". The wall monitor flared to life, and it clearly showed two kids planting the foam in Carson's desk. Then, the file skipped forward, to where Carson opened the drawer, and foam started rapidly filling the room. At this point, he was running around, and Coleman thought he could hear a faint screaming.

The Lieutenant watched the tape laughing gently at what she saw. "My my my. That was a lovely peace of video sir."

"Your children destroyed some of Mr. Lucas's personal possessions"

"Are you sure of that? I mean, we both know Mr. Lucas will do _anything_ to go shopping…how do you know he didn't ask my little cherubs to do that, so that he could get a whole new office? Or a new outfit?"

"He was quite adamant about his personal effects being ruined. Besides, this isn't the first time we've had an incident onboard with your kids"

Naiobi's head shot upwards, giving him an evil look. "Incidents? My children are just innocent bystanders on this ship."

"Woman, are you blind! Do I need to get Dr. Kealock up here to give you an exam? Remember the mess hall incident, where your children put a laxative into the icing? The waste management system was strained for a week! What about the incident in sickbay where they super-glued all the tri-corders shut? Care to explain those?"

She laughed softly at these stories. "They are just little angels on this ship full of adults who do not care to even laugh at the small, innocent pranks they pull."

Coleman sighed. "You owe Mr. Carson 200 credits in reparation for his destroyed items. Dismissed"

Naiobi blinked a bit, staying seated. "200 credits! For what items! No sir. I shall _not_ pay that. Ask him what he did to the children; he had to do something to them. I shall not pay that much."

"He didn't ask them to do anything! I doubt that he even spoke to your children. (I know I wouldn't have) I'll just replicate something new. For right now, just get out of my office"

The science officer let out a slight growl as she left the office without another word


	2. Ashes to Ashes

Runabout pad four-alpha was the epitome of Starfleet precision and cleanliness. The walls of dark grey were spotless, the metal trimming immaculate, and the black computer screens showed not even a spec of dust. Runabout pad four-Alpha was permeated with the stench of burnt popcorn. Starbase 842's Chief Engineer, the intelligent (yet cheesy) Lieutenant Stan Fields, crouched next to a starboard access panel with Operations chief Lieutenant J.G. Charlene Krantz. Both officers were sporting Mark VII engineering kits.

Krantz let out a slight growl. "I swear, if I was their mother, I would beat them until there little butts couldn't sit down anymore." Krantz was a hard-working, get-your-hands-dirty kind of officer, not to mention quite attractive with short, brown hair and gorgeous, dusky brown eyes.

Stan had a look of disgust on his face, and was wafting the air immediately in front of him. "Ugh, the stench is horrible…"

Charlene covered her nose, making a joke. "You know, whoever smelt it, dealt it." She smiled, rubbing off a dirt smudge that had affixed itself to her cheek.

"Do you have any idea how _old _that saying is?" scoffed Fields. Stan was never very good with women. Its not that he didn't like them, it was, well, that they didn't seem to like him. "Well, we had better find out where the little imps planted it."

She rolled her eyes a bit. "Alright it was bit old...but still…"

"Holy..." uttered the engineer. "How can popcorn do this?" he asked as he pulled a futuristic looking dust buster out of his kit.

It was clear Charlene was pissed. "I swear, I'm about to go lay it out on their mother..." she fumed. "I swear..."

"Chill, Charlene...you know that woman lives in doubt about her hell-spawn" said Sean, as he starts collecting ash samples from the vacuum, putting them in vials for analysis.

She shrugs a bit, starting to clean up a bit more inside of the panel. "Yeah, I know but still. We've got enough to do without cleaning up there messes."

The engineer caught unto those words like a bussard collector to hydrogen. "Oh?" he perks. "Things to do like what?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure we got more important things to do then this."

Sean let out a sly grin. "Hmm...say Charlene, you must be hungry from all this work...how about some dinner tonight?" Sean flashed her a cheesy smile.

Knowing where the engineer was going with this, she rolled her eyes a bit, putting her hands on her hip. "No."

Sean put up his hands in mock innocence. "Why not?"

The Latino woman picked up a tool, resting it on her shoulder. "Unless you want me to put this where the suns don't want to shine at, then you better think about who you're asking again. I know your ways."

Leaving the engineer in a stat of befuddlement, she reached her hand into the open panel, looking into the cavity. "There is a lot of this in here"

Sean, finally back to his senses, picks out a wide-angle particulate disperser. Sweeping it back and forth and the panel is clean in no time

Charlene laughed softly, putting the panel back into place. "That was pretty clever though, with the popcorn. I just wonder how they got in...hmm, why don't we go check the security logs? I'll take these samples to our lovely science officer for analysis.

"I'll head up to the XO first, tell and give him a heads up. Thanks for your help, Lieutenant," Offered the CEO, extending his hand.

"Its nothing, we've got to catch these kids." She puts her own hand out, placing it into his.

Sean smiled warmly at the sign of camaraderie. "They'll pay, believe me...hmm, what's the expansion rate of Try-methyl poly foam? 1 to 10000?" Sean let out a wild grin. "We'll catch the bastards in a Jeffries tube, and run them out. Its non toxic and it will dissipate with a low level ion spanner."

"Hmm...I don't know," said the ops officer. "I don't want to be the one to catch them; their mother would kill me for proving the guilt of her (she stands up, putting her hand on her hip mocking the mother of the evil ones) 'little special angels!' "

Sean laughed heartily at the impression of the scientist. "Wow, this is so unprofessional...well, I have to get going. See you in ops sometimes!"

Charlene waved at him as he walks out the large door with his kit in hand.


	3. Quarantine

Doctor Draxnor Kealock smiled as he finished putting the cover slip on a slide he was about to study. He was itching to study this rare sampling of Vulcan _gar'harat_. The bacterium was only one of a few in the known worlds to simultaneously thrive in both hot and cold desert environments. But it wasn't just bacteria that made him happy; it was the fact that he was getting away from everybody else. Ever since the Ktarian doctor stepped foot unto the station, he bore witness to, in his opinion, terrible breached in conduct and general etiquette. It was more than once that he was left doctoring drunken crewmembers back to health after a particularly heavy night on the alcohol.

As if destined to interrupt his scientific reverie, one of the younger male nurses poked his head into the lab. "Sorry to interrupt you, doc, but the lab results came back for Ensign Javanahan."

Kealock put on a neutral expression as he took the padd from the man in scrubs. "Thank you, Mr. Dubois. I'll be out in a moment."

The nurse nodded, exiting the doctors little laboratory. Kealock powered off the multi-spectrum analyzer, and stood up from his utility chair. "Another time, _gar'harat_," said the doctor, leaving the room. "Another time."

Ops chief Charlene Krantz entered unto the relatively quiet ops, carrying a padd in her right hand. The Lieutenant's face carried a sly smile, not only because of the contents of the padd, but because she knew how Duran was going to react to seeing it.

Alece Duran straightened herself out after leaning over the main table, scheduling cargo arrivals. The security officer put on a smile when she saw Krantz coming down the side stairs. "Ah, Lieutenant. It's good to see you again. What can I do for you?" she asked.

She looked at the higher ranking officer, her arms crossed over her chest. "I have a report on what the devils did," said Charlene as she handed Alece the padd. The Ops chief smelled of over-done popcorn, and was quite dirty after the cleaning of the runabout. "They put popcorn in the exhaust manifolds."

Alece adopted an incredulous look on her face as she read the report. Slowly, a grin materialized on her face, and she fought back a snort of laughter. "You've got to be joking...they actually put popcorn kernels in the exhaust of a runabout?" she asked.

Krantz kept her face straight, her arms still crossed. She was rather upset at the security chiefs laughing at the situation. Her mind was urging her to say 'yeah, laugh…you didn't have to clean it up', but she pushed her frustration aside. "Yes ma'. I'm not sure of the amount they used, but it was certainly large. It took a long time to clean up."

Duran could tell that Krantz was not amused. "I'm sorry, Charlene, I shouldn't have laughed. I just can't believe how they got in there! The Commander's going to be a bundle of joy once he sees this."

Charlene smiled a bit, looking her in the eyes. "That's why I brought you the report. You think I want to be the one to tell him? Aye, the chain of command has its perks," she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. "God, it smelled so horrible. You would not _believe_ how bad it was."

Duran sighed, not relishing the task ahead of her. "Well, you and Stan saved the day again," she said. An afterthought slipped across her mind, and she voiced it aloud with a grin." So, how many times did he try and make a move?"

"Oh only once," she said. "We got this understanding, you see, where if he wants to breathe another normal breath without a wrench in a particular orifice, he doesn't hit on me."

"Very nice!" commented Alece. "It took me a few times to get my method down. I just open the nearest panel and threaten to rip out whatever's inside."

Charlene chuckled. "I would do that, but I might have to help put that back together with him."

"Hmm, good point. Thanks again, Charlene."

"Anytime. Good luck telling the Commander, Ma'am. If you'll excuse me, ill evacuate the immediate area."

Coleman looked up from the various reports lying on his desk to see Duran stride in with a padd tucked under her arm. He raised an eyebrow at her, motioning her response.

Alece let out a slight sigh, her hand resting on a chair in front of his desk. Smiling, she greeted the commander. "Good Morning."

"Yes, good morning Alece," he responded. "What are you so bright and cheery about?"

Alece started to laugh loudly, now that she was out of ops. Chuckling still, she plopped into the chair and handed him the report.

Coleman took a moment to read over the report, with his facial expression going from amused, to shocked, and then to pissed. "Are you serious? How did the little bastards get in there? For crying out loud, what if there was a bloody emergency?" raved Coleman. "You know, I'm about sick of dealing with those hellions, and their mother..."

At that moment, Dr. Kealock burst into the room, flustering around like a lunatic.

"Quarantine the station! Quarantine! We've got a nasty airborne disease on our hands here, and this is a crisis! I'm placing the station under the SCC 34 bio-medical crisis code.

Duran jumped to her feet, demanding an explanation.

"Quarantine! Airborne disease! What's going on here?" she asked, her eyes locked on the doctor.

"Crewman Haravarah just tested positive for the Terothka virus. It causes debilitating stomach cramps, and a nasty rash. The virus is airborne, and it will take a little bit to synthesize a treatment."

"Commander, I agree that we should quarantine the station," added Duran.

"How long does it take to get sick?" asked Coleman.

The doctor rubbed his hands a little before answering. "The virus incubates for about 6 hours, and then it releases and wreaks havoc on your body."

Coleman rose from his desk, and proceeded to Ops knowing that the others would follow him out. "Code Blue! Computer, place the station under general quarantine, authorization Gamma Gamma Juliet. All hands to general quarters"

Operations instantly dissolved into a flurry of activity. The typically dormant running lights flared into a deep cobalt hue, and the main lights dimmed, sending the area into an industrial glow. Several status displays lining the back wall flashed the alert pattern, and the turbolift access sealed shut.

"Station quarantine complete," voiced the cool, feminine tone of the computer. "Critical areas sealed and on independent life support. Level 2 authorizations required for critical area access. All airlocks sealed. All Moored vessels have been locked down."

"Very good," said Coleman. "Doctor, mobilize the med deck and get your teams going. Alert me every half hour, and whenever there is a change."

The doctor nodded curtly before rushing off to the nearest lift, where he gave his clearance and left.

"Duran, scramble security teams to critical areas, and assign deck patrols. Make sure everyone is calm and in place. Naiobi, start working on the airflow patterns of the virus. I'd like a report as soon as possible. Engineering and Operations: Bring backup atmospheric scrubbers online, and make sure quarantine fields stay in place. Let's get to it!"


End file.
